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Marx inherited the ideas of class and class struggle from utopian socialism and the theories of Henri de Saint-Simon. These had been given substance by the writings of French historians such as Adolphe Thiers and François Guizot on the French Revolution of 1789.…

…on the theory of the class struggle. Whereas sociological functionalists posited the existence in a society of some religion or a substitute for it (Comte, incidentally, propounded a positivistic religion, somewhat in the spirit of the French Revolution), the Marxists implied the disappearance of religion in a classless society. Thus,…

…social structure and create new antagonisms among urban social classes. The key division lay between the members of the middle class, who owned businesses or acquired professional education, and those of the working class, who depended on the sale of labour for a wage. Neither group was homogeneous. Many middle-class…

…half of the 13th century, class antagonism rose in the main industrial cities in Flanders. The political conflict between the count of Flanders, the king of France, and the partriciate opened the way for the craftsmen to score a military victory in 1302. This led to the constitutional recognition of…

…the development of two antagonistic classes: the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. The bourgeoisie controls governmental machinery in its own interests. In its international relations, the capitalist state engages in wars because it is driven by the dynamism of its system—the constantly growing need for raw materials, markets, and supplies of…

…history is a series of class struggles and revolutionary upheavals, leading ultimately to freedom for all. Marx derived his views in part from the philosophy of G.W.F. Hegel, who conceived of history as the dialectical self-development of “spirit.” In contrast to Hegel’s philosophical idealism, however, Marx held that history is…

Class and class struggle were related concepts that occupied a central place in the ideology, and a specific aim of education was to develop class consciousness so that all citizens, young and old, would become valiant fighters in the class struggle. School regulations stipulated that 10 percent…

theory of

Marx’s understanding of class struggle was influenced by the work of the English economist David Ricardo (1772–1823), who had developed a model of how “perfect” markets work in a capitalist mode of production. Ricardo had made the conflicting interests of landlords, employers, and workers the centre of his…

…history, Marx said, is the struggle between an exploiting minority and an exploited majority, most recently between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat; and he advocated the formation of a Communist Party to stimulate proletarian class consciousness and to encourage the proletarian seizure of power and the institution of a just…

…follows, as the result of class conflict in which the plebeians achieve equal rights, but this stage encounters the problems of corruption, dissolution, and a possible reversion to primitive barbarism. Vico affirmed that Providence must right the course of history so that humanity is not engulfed in successive cataclysms.